


You're Such a Good Friend

by Bah_Alt



Category: BNA: Brand New Animal (Anime)
Genre: F/M, Introspection, One Shot, it's cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:49:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25026472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bah_Alt/pseuds/Bah_Alt
Summary: A beach day causes Shirou to think about where he has come from and what could be.
Relationships: Kagemori Michiru/Ogami Shirou
Comments: 22
Kudos: 372





	You're Such a Good Friend

Shirou had been alone for a long time. Much longer than he would ever like to admit. And while for the most part he believed it was what was for the best for him, he couldn’t ward off the part that felt lonely.

Sure there was the loneliness that came with being isolated for hundreds of years. Of being the only one to know a secret no others could. Of being the only one left.

But then there was the liberation of once again not being alone. Not in the way the Mayor made him feel, but in a real way that made him feel he no longer had to suffer. At least not by himself.

That’s why everything about this girl was off putting to him. The exuberance, her light hearted ways, the simple air she had spoke to years of living in a way that meant she had been raised by good people. In a way she’d never had to worry about anything.

It was where the girl had come from after all. She was just a normal human girl, who had lived a normal human life. There was nothing in her soul that showed the years of discrimination beastmen had faced, no matter what her tanuki body looked like now. She could go back to a normal no beastman could ever have and for that it made her luckier than any of them could be. 

To be able to have a normal? He was born a wolf man. It was all he’d ever know and he would never want to live without his wolf half. Even if he could no longer protect his fellow beastmen with his powers, he would still want to be part wolf. It was a part of who he was.

Damn the discrimination.

And try as he might his attempts at warding off the humans proved futile. He wanted them gone from their politics, from their cultural ties, and from their pharmaceutical industries. But he knew, in his truest heart, they would never be gone. 

Of course that's what he'd wanted. Until he met her. He’d always know the difference between human and beastman. Before getting close to a human, to her, it was easier to maintain the ideology that they were all monsters, which now he knew… wasn’t true. At least he didn’t think he’d fallen in love with a monster. Wouldn’t that have been awfully ironic?

So that night when he’d asked that ridiculously long limbed, fast legged, wing sprouting tanuki girl to the beach with him, he’d hoped against hope that she wouldn't be a monster. A human just as awful as every single one who had breathed before him. 

And what made that day all the worse was that she wasn’t any of those things.  Michiru Kagemori. A human turned beastman. The most wonderful creature he’d ever laid his eyes on.

He went to scout for her on the beach, his human body being highly susceptible to the rays of the sun. His fur was white and so was his skin, which despite immortality unfortunately did not make him immune to sunburns.

When he didn’t see the stupid tanuki girl anywhere, he went about setting up the umbrella, slathering himself in sunscreen. You could never be too careful. Something about super healing rendered broken bones fixed in seconds but burnt skin lasted for a week. Not like the rules of immortality were explained to him upon resurrection.

He glanced up and down the beach checking for her brown fur covered body and her cute little tanuki ears. She kept calling herself a racoon, but anyone with a nose knew otherwise. He couldn’t help a snort at the pedantic struggle.

But still there was no sign. Hunkering down into the beach chair, he pulled out a book hoping to pass the time that way. And maybe not seem so desperate if she got here. Maybe the Bears had caught up with her or her human friend? Maybe she hadn’t realized how disgusting it was for a human to meet a beastman at the beach for ‘a date’.

Fuck, he was the silver wolf. He shouldn’t be feeling all these things.

Yet he fucking did. Grimacing, he couldn’t help lurching up front the chair hoping to work off some of his passive anger in the water. Cool down of sorts. It didn’t stop his human form from shedding off right there and then though in a rare lapse of control. His giant wold body shown to the beach.

He glanced around for reactions, to see the threatened faces of who ever was there. But thankfully the few that were there and noticed seemed to only spare him a sideways glance, somehow not taking his involuntary transformation as a sign of aggression. Or maybe they just didn’t want to challenge him.

Sniffing the air, he searched for her scent, tracking it through the air waves, around street corners, and through buildings. From what he could tell she was headed his way in a hurry, still a five minute trek from here. And at the speed she was trying to travel she was bound to hurt herself, but most likely she was using her cheetah legs, so hopefully she’d be alright.

Rolling his shoulder blades backwards, tight with worry , he took his shirt off and still in his wolf body wandered into the water. He hoped she wouldn’t mind, but she didn’t seem like the type.

Coming from the canine family he did have a natural love for water, but from a cultural perspective he had a natural disposition towards sharks. Something about the water dissipating scent and his lack of vision and mobility in it really gave him the shakes. He mostly didn’t like to wander outside of waist deep water.

That’s why he couldn’t help the shudder that ran up and down his spin when the damn human-beastman tanuki splashed right into the water next to him. Sure he’d know she was coming and avoided the splash but still, the girl was so loud.

Rolling his eyes, he couldn’t help but watch her for a second. Everything she did was done wholeheartedly. She never got into the ocean waist deep, it was always head first. And she never stopped to check the temperature, she was always fearless.

And he knew how stupid that was. She could freeze or she could drown. Any fucking thing could happen to this girl when she was floundering around, but none of that seemed to bother her.

Instead, when she resurfaced after the first dive, she just sprayed a mouth full of water into his face and asked, “Why don’t you come in all the way? The water’s nice!”

And before he could answer she’d already splashed away, doing backwards somersaults in the water. Huffing through his nostrils, he stretched his clawed hands in front of him. Prepared to go under the water not because she challenged him but because he just happened to feel it was time.

Never mind the fact he couldn't smell where she was in the water. He could still sense her circling around him like the sharks he couldn't help but fear. But if he cose not to stop her from pulling his legs underwater in a sneak attack, well no one was around to say. Because a proud beastman wouldn’t have let that happen.

Surfacing from his thorough dunking, he sent a spout of water from his own muzzle back in her face before slipping out of his beastman form. He could sense the tension rising on the beach because of it.

Not that it meant anything to her when she still bounced up in the water with her never faltering smile, she tucked a stray piece of his white hair behind his right ear and stated, “You’re so cute as a wolf! Not that I don’t like you in both forms! Just wish I got to see you-” But she was cut off when her friends appeared.

Which of course lead to him being the base in a chicken fight which they were no match considering their landlord and her husband formed the tower with the latter literally being a chicken.

Not that it stopped her from smiling. Nothing seemed to be able. It was almost infectious, in the way it made him feel as if somehow he might be able to smile once again.

And when they sat on the terrace later that night side by side, him in his human form and her in her tanuki form, he selfishly hoped this wouldn’t be the last he saw of her. That tomorrow wouldn't be the day she was cured of the beastman ailment that afflicted her and she wouldn't disappear.

Hell, why would she bother to even say a word to him or anyone if she chose to leave? Who were they to her?

She was a human. Born of the mainland. And as far as she had known until a year ago, the world was a decent place. She didn’t need to think about what it meant to be a beastman. The fear it felt like to breathe if one did not look human. How even the island of paradise, the place for beastmen to be safe, had quickly become another place of cheap survival.

But here the dumb ass girl was. Sprinting around in her beastman form because 'it was just more comfortable Shirou', hitting a beach volleyball once again against the flamingo team. The bratty girls trying to defeat her one last time. 

Him feeling her wanting to be a beastman for one more day. A week. Or maybe a month. Nothing had made him happier. Well, happier than knowing she wanted to stay here more.

So even when they packed up their bags at the end of the day. And they had walked back to their little shelter together, his human hand around her tanuki paw. She still smiled at him under what was now a nights sky, a crescent moon hanging serenely. And then she was leaning in to kiss his cheek. The softest touch he had received in longer than his brain would allow him to remember.

He didn’t know if he could accept it or if she even really wanted him. With all his broken pieces and beastman tragedy that followed with every step.

But just for that moment, maybe he could smile. A smile he had kept inside for a thousand years. And with any luck it wouldn't have to go away any time soon.


End file.
